Saturday, 30 June 2007, 15:11 GMT

Greater Israel and the Ethics of Criminals

Jan-Inge Flücht is a Swedish blogger best known for his aggressive attitude towards Jews, liberals, and gay people. Today he accuses Anna Veeder, a Swedish-Israeli woman, of being an Zionist agent after she used a weather map from the newspaper Haaretz on her blog. Mr Flücht makes his wild accusation because he thinks it's a map of Greater Israel, which is not true. Greater Israel stretches far beyond the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are the two Palestinian areas seen in the Haaretz weather map. Seen in the picture above is the land God promised Abraham, which is Greater Israel as traditional Zionists see it. From Genesis 15:18-21:

On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites."

By normal terminology, Mr Flücht's would be labelled a despicable anti-Semite for lashing out at Ms Veeder and other Jews the way he does, but since he is something of a pet blogger of the Swedish Socialist Left, he gets away with it. That is how every extremist movement operates—as long as you claim loyalty to the right group, you can say and write whatever you wish without condemnation. This is a logical result of the relativist morality of the Left, according to which there are no true values to be protected independent of circumstances. This is why socialists can fight fascism, homophobia, and racism one day and endorse it the next. Make no mistake—relativism is evil. It is the ethics of criminals.

About the picture: This was long considered the first map of the Holy Land to use Hebrew lettering exclusively. The map was published in Amsterdam in 1695. It shows the land extending from the Nile to Damascus and from the Arnon Valley to the Mediterranean Sea. The illustration on the right shows the story of Jonah and the whale. Above is Solomon's boat, which carried the cedar trees for the construction of the Temple. The woman on right symbolizes Africa. The eagle is the emblem of the Divine Power.

Thursday, 28 June 2007, 22:36 GMT

Prepare to Disbelieve

The Creation Museum in Kentucky advertises with the slogan "prepare to believe", which is ironic since it is built entirely on stubborn disbelief. George Packer of the New Yorker has visited this new Christianist museum:

It's tempting to treat the museum as an interesting cultural diversion, rather like a guided tour through Colonial Williamsburg, which is how Rothstein, at the Times, took it. But the museum's creators are more serious than that, and in a sense they have it right: the family from Columbus came looking for a middle ground that doesn't exist. Either you accept the claims of science, or you might as well believe that dinosaurs made it onto Noah's Ark. This disagreement is the size of the Grand Canyon. The mass of ordinary visitors were every bit as alien to me as the few Mennonite families in their nineteenth-century bonnets and long beards. We might speak the same contemporary American dialect, wear the same T-shirts, and eat the same fatty foods, but our basic beliefs are so incompatible that it's hard to know what political arrangement could ever satisfy us both. Rothstein ended one of his reviews by saying that a visitor "leaves feeling a bit like Adam emerging from Eden, all the world before him, freshly amazed at its strangeness and extravagant peculiarities." My experience was different: I had the sense of being a dissident surrounded by the lies of a totalitarian state, and I kept my reactions to myself. As I was driving away, I realized what the barrage of falsehoods written on slick signboards reminded me of. It was the telescreens in "1984."

Well, I haven't been to the museum, but I am inclined to second Mr Packer's words nonetheless.

Thursday, 28 June 2007, 17:39 GMT

To Teach You Must Learn

Anders Gradin is the head of Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan, an educational association that—according to its website—organizes "creative meeting places such as study circles, cultural events and lectures, at witch people can gather, socialise and acquire new knowledge." In an article published in today's Svenska Dagbladet, Mr Gradin suggests that the Internet is controlled by paedophiles and pornographers. To fight this immorality, he wants his organization to offer their services to people over the Internet. That is a splendid idea. However, I can't stop wondering if Mr Gradin's complete lack of Internet knowledge makes him about the last person with any education to offer experienced Internet users. Thankfully, the insightful blogger Blogge Bloggelito is patient enough to point out to Mr Gradin where exactly he got it wrong. Read and learn, Anders!

Thursday, 28 June 2007, 15:53 GMT

The Church of Sweden Goes Gay

The Church of Sweden has decided to participate in the festivities at Stockholm Pride. According to an article in the church paper, Sweden's largest Christian organization wants its own section in the parade. This is astonishing news considering the Church did not fully recognize homosexuals existed until 1994.

Tuesday, 26 June 2007, 22:02 GMT

The Science of Gaydar

According to an article in New York Magazine, gay men are more likely than straight men to be left-handed and have a counterclockwise whorl on their head. That might explain how the mysterious gaydar works, the article suggests.

Tuesday, 26 June 2007, 16:48 GMT

Angela Merkel on the Cover

The cover of the Polish weekly magazine Wprost has raised eyebrows in Germany. Who would have guessed that the Poles could produce this kind of humorous take on contemporary politics?

Monday, 25 June 2007, 12:51 GMT

Porn for Rapists

From an article in The Local:

Sweden's convicted rapists are entitled to have pornography in their cells, the Supreme Administrative Court (Regeringsrätten) judged on Monday.

The decision is the final word in a case that began when the Swedish Prison and Probation Service banned a man serving an eight year sentence for rape in Härnösand jail from receiving pornographic material.

Sunday, 24 June 2007, 16:20 GMT

It's Great Being the President's Poodle

Andrew Sullivan cannot understood why it's bad to call Tony Blair a poodle of the president of the United States:

Poodle owners are often passionate about their pets, catering to their every whim, manipulated by their guile and tolerating their sometimes snippy relationships with other dogs. In many cases—and this is not restricted to poodles, of course—it's hard to tell, after a while, who controls whom. The master routinely finds his days wrapped around catering for the poodle: walking it, grooming it, pandering to it. If the tail often wags the dog, the dog can also wag the human. And often does.

I've never understood, in this respect, why calling a British prime minister a poodle of the president of the United States is therefore always to the detriment of the Brit. Most postwar British prime ministers have intuitively understood this, however strongly their publics have sometimes balked. The global power of a British premier is nowhere near that of an American president, but the Brits' leverage over such power is arguably greater than any other country's—precisely because of their treasured, special, pampered poodle status.

Only moments ago, Mr Blair handed over the leadership of the Labour party to Gordon Brown. On Thursday, Blair will end his premiership.

Sunday, 24 June 2007, 10:38 GMT

New EU Treaty Sacrifices Gay Rights

After the new treaty is ratified, Poland will be able to deprive gay people of their most fundamental human rights. The final text of the treaty states that governments can ignore human-rights declarations and freely legislate in the "sphere of public morality and family law". This is exactly the kind of permission Poland wanted after EU courts forced the country to allow gays and lesbians to assembly. Before the ruling, Polish authorities sent the police around every time gay people gathered for a party or demonstration. The courts stopped this practice, but now European leaders will give Poland's homophobes the go-ahead.

Once again, the EU leadership has proven incapable at protecting basic human rights; it is more concerned with "social rights" that gives the elite politicians and the bureaucrats more powers.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if mainstream media completely ignores what the new treaty means for gay people and other minority groups.

Sunday, 24 June 2007, 09:16 GMT

Something to Worry About

Today's leading article in the Observer comments on the new EU treaty negotiated the past few days in Brussels:

An unforeseen sticking point was a French manoeuvre to strike a commitment to "free and undistorted competition" from the treaty. It was reinserted in an attached protocol. That shift may not sound dramatic, but it emboldens member states to protect their national industries. That is a perfectly rational thing to do if you have industrial champions that enjoy a cosy relationship with government. It is a disaster if, like Britain, you have diligently pursued a policy of opening your economy.

The much-vaunted conspiracy by Brussels against British sovereignty is a fiction. In fact, the EU in recent years has got closer to being the kind of loose-knit free trade zone that moderate Eurosceptics would like it to be. But when the commitment to "undistorted competition" is diminished, even Euro-enthusiasts in Britain have something to worry about.

With France's successful blow at free trade and the new charter of "social rights" becoming law we all have something to worry about. The European Union is about to make political life impossible for any opponents to the elitist welfare state. With this said, there are a few good thing in the new treaty. One being that the national parliaments will be able to block new union legislation. It might complecate things, but from a libertarian perspective making the work of legislators difficult is a good thing.

Postscript: Svenska Dagbladet has published a list in Swedish with highlights from the new treaty. Read it here.

Saturday, 23 June 2007, 20:03 GMT

The Fear of Freedom

Yet another blogging Social Democrat appeals to ignorance and echoes the scaremongers of the far-right Sweden Democrats. This time the self-proclaimed "progressives" of Swedish politics fear a secular society that doesn't favour one religion over another. The blogger in question exemplify his worst-case scenario with a society in which people could choose what day of the week they wished to stay home from work to worship. Knowing where the Social Democrats come from, I realize that nothing scares them more than the thought of people being free to do what they want. But please, next to this the Pope is a radical progressive. Pathetic.

Saturday, 23 June 2007, 04:50 GMT

Thanks

Many thanks for all emails congratulating my husband and me. Yesterday's ceremony went well. Unfortunately, it rained and we had to keep our wedding reception indoors.

When I write this, it's early in the morning the day after. Our visiting guests are sleeping, which gives me a moment to myself. While I'm drinking my morning coffee and look through the online newspapers I get a sense of surreality—nothing has changed, yet everything is different. Strange mood I'm in.

Saturday, 23 June 2007, 04:48 GMT

Worrying News from Brussels

Europe's most bureaucratic and illiberal member state seems to influence the new union treaty:

It emerged on Thursday June 21st that France's new president had succeeded in removing "free and undistorted competition" from a list of the EU's core objectives at the top of a new "reform treaty": being thrashed to replace the defunct constitution.

The failure of France's big-government politics never restrain the French from wanting more of the same. The success of EU's free-market countries—a fact proven by low unemployment and rapid growth—never seem to get through to self-righteous politicians more interested in approval from each other than the European people they are meant to serve.

Wednesday, 20 June 2007, 01:07 GMT

Honeymoon

I'm getting married on Friday. Legally, it will be a "civil union" until the Swedish Parliament pass a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry. However, I call it marriage nonetheless.

I met my husband-to-be at a bus stop in Stockholm in March 1998. It was past midnight and we were both heading home after some drinks at different bars. We had missed a bus by a few minutes and had to wait for the next one. While we sat on the bench chatting about this and that like tipsy strangers do, I noticed that a copy of the gay newspaper QX stuck up from one of his pockets. Boastful as always, I told him that I was one of the founding owners of the paper he planned to read. That broke the ice. Knowing we were both gay enabled us to speak about where we had been that night. That information would later turn out to be crucial, because when the bus came and we separated, all I really know about this man was what bar he normally frequented. Since I could not get him off my mind, I visited his favourite bar as often as I could the following week. And then, one night, he turned up. I saw him come in, buy a pint of lager, and looking for a place to sit. Normally quite shy in situations like this, I decided to go for it, walked up to him, and said hello. That is more than nine years ago now, and we have been together as a couple since.

For quite some time, we said that we would not get married until gay couples could get married on equal terms with heterosexual couples. However, a few months ago we changed our minds and decided to go for a civil union. If everything goes according to plan, civil unions will become marriages once the parliament approves the forthcoming bill. Besides, why should we postpone our wedding just because the Christian Right wants us to be second-rate citizens?

Speaking of Christians, seen in the picture above are the saints Sergius and Bacchus from a seventh-century icon that proves an example of an early same-sex union. The icon depicts what many historians and theologians claim is a Christian wedding between the two men with Jesus as best man. The Catholic Church and others who defend the contemporary homophobic theology of Christianity deny that Sergius and Bacchus were gay men, but the oldest text of their martyrology clearly states that they were lovers.

Beginning today, family and friends are flying in from all over Sweden to attend our wedding on Friday. There will not be a quiet moment in the house for at least a week or so. Therefore, I will take some time off blogging—let's call it a honeymoon. If my husband allows it, I might post a wedding picture for our friends living abroad. Apart from that, my blog will now be silent for a week. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, 19 June 2007, 22:42 GMT

Europe Hostage by Islamist Rage

The Islamists are doing what they always do when something doesn't go their way:

The international row over Salman Rushdie's knighthood escalated after Islamic extremists placed a £80,000 bounty on the writer's head.

Too much money in the hands of nutty people can do a great deal of harm—even more so when mainstream politicians are terrified of saying anything that could upset the fanatics further. After the terror attacks on 11 September 2001 and the Muhammad cartoons controversy, Europe is in fact kept hostage by its own fear of Islamist rage. The Muslim world have more guts than the West; while we don't say a word in defence of liberty, they are not shy about voicing their opposition to free speech:

Earlier in the day Pakistan's government summoned Britain's high commissioner in Islamabad for talks on the escalating row."

This insulting, suspicious and improper act by the British government is an obvious example of fighting against Islam," Ebrahim Rahimpour, Foreign Ministry director for Western Europe, told British Ambassador Geoffrey Adams.

Personally, I'm so tired of religious fundamentalists setting the agenda for the whole world. Democratic countries with civil liberties and implemented human rights should not have to compromise one bit to intolerant, superstitious, and totalitarian mobs and despots. I don't care what the Socialist Left and other relativists say, the culture of liberty is superior to the culture of tyranny.

Tuesday, 19 June 2007, 20:21 GMT

Fundamentalist Failure

Yair Ettinger of Haaretz reports:

Religious activists leading the struggle to prevent Jerusalem's gay pride parade from taking place Thursday are nearing the last round of their fight. Despite their efforts, it seems their campaign is not really getting off the ground.

The problem seems to be that Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community is reluctant to participate in the protests that the fundamentalist activists have been staging throughout the previous week.

For example, organizers of Sunday's mass protest rally on Bar-Ilan Street in the capital called it in advance "the 100,000-strong demonstration." Police estimated the crowd at 10,000, but even that figure was exaggerated. In reality, the demonstration that was meant to "shake the ground for the sanctity of Jerusalem" attracted no more than several thousand protesters.

I knew God is not sharing the fundamentalists' view on homosexuals, but now it seems that many of the fundamentalists themselves have second thoughts.

Monday, 18 June 2007, 23:28 GMT

The Satanic Ideology

From an article in The Times:

Eighteen years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill him [Salman Rushdie], a government minister in Pakistan said yesterday that Rushdie's recent knighthood justified suicide bombing.

There it is again, the voice of totalitarian fundamentalism.

Monday, 18 June 2007, 01:05 GMT

Walking with Morons

A press release calling on Jews to protest next week's pride parade in Jerusalem blames gays for Hezbollah's attack on Israel:

The previous parade brought upon us the Second Lebanon War, with 150 dead and 1 million refugees… We call on all Jews to come to Jerusalem to use lawful means to stop the parade.

When it comes to opposing civil liberties for gay people, religious fundamentalists of all sorts seem to lose their wits.

Sunday, 17 June 2007, 23:32 GMT

EU's Legal Personality

Henrik Alexandersson is worried about the European Union becoming a legal person when the next treaty is ratified. He calls the move "revolutionary" (omvälvande). I think he is overreacting to a tiny detail that hardly would make the EU any different from what it is today. The EU is de facto a legal person as it is. From the Europa Glossary:

The two Communities (European Community and Euratom) making up the European Union each have legal personality. However, the Treaty on European Union does not contain any provisions on the Union's legal personality even though the Union comprises the two Communities and two areas of intergovernmental cooperation, namely common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

The European Community has the power to conclude and negotiate agreements in line with its external powers, to become a member of an international organisation and to have delegations in non-member countries.

The question of the Union's legal personality has essentially been raised in connection with international relations, especially the power to conclude treaties or accede to agreements or conventions. The Union does not have institutionalised treaty-making powers, i.e. international capacity to enter into agreements with non-member countries. However, it pursues its own objectives at international level, whether by concluding agreements through the Council of the European Union or by asserting its position on the international stage, especially in connection with CFSP.

The Constitution, which is in the process of ratification, provides for the European Union to have legal personality.

What libertarians should worry about is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is a socialist, big-government document asserting politicians, bureaucrats, and labour unionists the power to interfere with nearly every aspect of citizens' lives. The charter is a dangerous mockery that would not only make it impossible for the EU to compete on the global market but also deprive Europeans of their human rights.

Sunday, 17 June 2007, 12:06 GMT

Europe's Demography—Not Too Bad

Worries over Europe's declining birth rate has been discussed on and off for as long as I can remember. The trend being dramatically increasing life expectancy, the gloomiest predictions have talked of a continent where the elderly make up more than half the population and with not enough young people providing for them. Some politicians have used the scare of a demographic breakdown as an argument against everything from gender equality and abortion to secularism and gay rights. Now, it seems, things are not that bad. In the latest issue of The Economist, the data is scrutinized. From the article:

Received opinion holds, in the phrase of Auguste Comte, a 19th-century social scientist, that "demography is destiny" and that Europe is doomed by its death-spiral population numbers. American observers from Walter Laqueur, an academic, to Mark Steyn, a conservative polemicist, argue that Europe is fast becoming a barren, ageing, enfeebled place. Vast numbers of old people, they reckon, will be looked after, or neglected, by too few economically active adults, supplemented by restless crowds of migrants. The combination of low fertility, longer life and mass immigration will put intolerable pressure on public health, pensions and social services, leading (probably) to upheaval.

There are several possible objections to that gloomy forecast. One is that a growing population is not, of itself, necessarily a good thing, nor a falling one unambiguously bad. Another is that there is no short-term correlation between population change and wealth: Japan and South Korea have even lower fertility than Europe. But there is a simpler objection: the picture of relentless decline is wrong, or, to be accurate, half wrong. Europe is not in decline. Rather, as Jitka Rychtarikova of the Charles University in Prague argues, it no longer makes sense to talk about Europe as a single demographic unit at all. There are two Europes.

One is the familiar place of low fertility and population decline. Here, the fertility rate is below 1.5 and countries are struggling in a fertility trap. The low fertility belt runs from the Mediterranean to central and eastern Europe, embracing both old and new parts of the continent. The other, surprising Europe is a place of recovering fertility and rising population. It stretches from Scandinavia to France. Here, countries have escaped the fertility trap and the childbearing rate is around 1.8—not high, but higher than it was, and, in some cases, reaching the magic replacement level.

Europe's demography is not without flaws, but things are not as bad as some dystopians might have let us to believe. I quote the article's final passage:

Europeans are only starting the process of recovery. Compared with America, even the growing parts of the continent have modest fertility rates and high dependency ratios. But if Europe has a demographic future it lies in Britain, France and Scandinavia, not across the Atlantic.

Saturday, 16 June 2007, 14:36 GMT

Varför bara reformiver i opposition?

Oppositionen kommer att ta initiativ till en könsneutral äktenskapslagstiftning. Det meddelar Mona Sahlin, Maria Wetterstrand och Lars Ohly idag i en artikel på Dagens Nyheters debattsida. Bra så. Men jag blir fundersam när jag läser det sista stycket:

Vi förbereder därför, precis som förra gången en moderatledd regering vägrade stå upp för alla människors rätt till kärlek och trygghet, ett riksdagsinitiativ. Vi vill undanröja de sista resterna av särlagstiftningen.

Men varför är socialdemokraterna bara så sugna på reformer när de är i opposition, undrar jag? Under tolv år med regeringsmakten har nästan allt gått åt fel håll. Äktenskapsfrågan har förhalats flera gånger och hatbrotten har tredubblats. Först nu när frågan kan användas mot borgerligheten blir den diskriminerande äktenskapsbalken och hatbrotten viktiga.

Nåväl. Man kanske inte ska bry sig om att ställa sådana frågor nu när allt ser ut att gå i rätt riktning.

Saturday, 16 June 2007, 02:22 GMT

Do Something about How Fat I Am

In only one sentence, the Onion's new T-shirt motif explains why government officials' plans for a tax on fatty foods will succeed. There is nothing an overweight person like myself respond to more than the opportunity to blame others for our failures. My guess is that the European Union, the United States, and Canada will see a fat tax before the end of this decade. As with other taxes of this sort, people who oppose will be guilted into silence.

Friday, 15 June 2007, 21:57 GMT

The Moderate Party on Same-Sex Marriage

The executive of the Moderate Party has decided to recommend the party congress to vote in favour of same-sex marriage. I welcome this and hope the congress will do the same.

I haven't had the time to translate the motivation into English, but in Swedish it reads:

Tiden är därför mogen för en könsneutral äktenskapslagstiftning med lika rättigheter och skyldigheter för alla oavsett om man väljer att dela sitt liv med någon av samma eller motsatt kön. Samma utveckling har på senare år skett i många av Europas länder.

Dagens ordning där präster i Svenska kyrkan och vissa andra trossamfund har vigselrätt bör behållas. I enlighet med religionsfrihetens krav måste det få ankomma på trossamfunden att själv avgöra vilka vigslar som är förenliga med respektive samfunds trosuppfattning.

Friday, 15 June 2007, 03:27 GMT

Islamist-Style Democracy

The past week has seen violent clashes between the two main parties of Palestinian politics, i.e. the Islamist Hamas and the utterly corrupt Fatah. I quote an Associated Press article:

Hamas fighters overran two of the rival Fatah movement's most important security command centers in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, and witnesses said the victors dragged vanquished gunmen into the street and shot them to death execution-style.

And people wonder why democratic Israelis feel the need for a separation wall around the Gaza Strip.

(Seen in picture are Hamas terrorists enjoying some refreshment between killings. Photo by Khalil Hamra.)

Thursday, 14 June 2007, 02:47 GMT

The End of Oil

From an article in the Independent:

Scientists have criticised a major review of the world's remaining oil reserves, warning that the end of oil is coming sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit.

BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, published yesterday, appears to show that the world still has enough "proven" reserves to provide 40 years of consumption at current rates. The assessment, based on officially reported figures, has once again pushed back the estimate of when the world will run dry.

However, scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years before entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives.

According to "peak oil" theory our consumption of oil will catch, then outstrip our discovery of new reserves and we will begin to deplete known reserves.

Colin Campbell, the head of the depletion centre, said: "It's quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it's gone."

Thursday, 14 June 2007, 00:14 GMT

Iraqi Södertälje

From an article in the New York Times:

Mr. Lago is the mayor of this scenic Swedish town of 60,000 people, which last year took in twice as many Iraqi refugees as the entire United States, almost all of them Christians fleeing the religious cleansing taking place next to Iraq's anti-American insurgency and sectarian strife.

So the mourners are now part of Mr. Lago's constituency, and their war is rapidly becoming Sodertalje's war—to the mayor's growing chagrin. Sodertalje, he says, is reaching a breaking point, and can no longer provide the newcomers with even the basic services they have the right to expect.

About 9,000 Iraqis made it to Sweden in 2006—almost half of the 22,000 who sought asylum in the entire industrialized world. This year, when the United States has promised to take in 7,000 Iraqis, around 20,000 are expected to seek asylum in Sweden.

Many of them are expected to find their way to this thriving town nestled among cold lakes and steep pine and birch-covered hills about 18 miles southwest of Stockholm. During 2006, following a migration route for Middle Eastern Christians laid down almost half a century ago, more than 1,000 Iraqis arrived here. This year, up to 2,000 are expected to come.

Tuesday, 12 June 2007, 15:14 GMT

Sex Bomb, Sex Bomb, You're My Sex Bomb

OK, I admit I was wrong. There really was a homosexual agenda. My only defence is that I didn't know about until today.

By the way, if anyone at the Pentagon or CIA reads this, could you please tell me how I could get my hands on one of those bombs?

Tuesday, 12 June 2007, 01:54 GMT

Forty Years with Interracial Marriage

On this day forty years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled state laws prohibiting interracial marriage unconstitutional. Thus, on 12 June 1967, the sixteen American states that still had antimiscegenation laws on their books, were forced to erase them. However, the state of Alabama refused to do so until the year 2000.

I mention this because it puts today's struggle for marriage equality in perspective. Everybody says love is a good thing, but the truth is that many people have a very narrow-minded idea of what love is. When love comes in the "wrong" shape, colour, or gender, far too many tend to dismiss it as unnatural and unwanted.

Monday, 11 June 2007, 22:01 GMT

Cannabis Scare

Francis Sedgemore wants some fair and balance in the debate on cannabis use:

Cannabis is not a harmless drug, and there is need of public education so that people can make informed decisions about their lifestyles. But spreading scare stories and dodgy statistics is grossly irresponsible, risks bringing the medical profession into disrepute, and breeds contempt for political authority.

I second that. Nothing is more harmful than scare tactics. Politicians, journalists, and government officials should learn from the failed AIDS campaigns of the 1980s.

Monday, 11 June 2007, 20:45 GMT

Läsarkommentar

En läsare har skickat en kommentar till gårdagens inlägg om homofobi i forna kommunistländer:

Din förklaring som handlar om religion är knappast korrekt. Religiositeten är inte något hinder till ganska avslappad inställning till sex när det handlar om heterosex, till och med ofta "vildare" än i Sverige. Den hätska fanatiska inställningen börjar bara när det börjar handla om homosex.

Den riktiga förklaringen, tror jag, är att män och kvinnor i Ryssland är väldigt bundna vid sina könsroller och har svår att tänka sig utanför dem. Homosexuella män ses i detta avseende som män som frivilligt avsäger sig (och därmed utmanar) den befintliga traditionella ordningen med fastställda roller. Om ordningen kollapsar så blir männen tvungna att diska, städa, tvätta och sitta med barn (För att illustrera detta: min 5-månaderslånga föräldraledighet sågs av mina vänner i f d Sovjet som ett lustigt liberalt påfund). Kvinnorna blir också skrämda av visionen att männen ska sluta se sig själva som tuffa familjeförsörjare och försvarare och kvinnorna blir tvungna att jobba inte bara för sällskapets men även för försörjningens skull.

Hets mot homosexuella kvinnor är däremot mindre omfattande för att karriärkvinnor (alltså kvinnor som lever utanför sina roller) är mer accepterade än män med disktrasor och barnvagnar.

Samma förklaring gäller för varför är det mer eller mindre acceptabelt för många om homosexuella träffas bakom stängda dörrar, men offentlig demonstation är mycket värre: det är ju inte själva sexakten som hotar rollfördelningen men offentlig demonstation av en annorlunda livsstil.

Att man åberopar religion är också förklarligt: det ät lättare att säga att man fruktar Gud än att erkänna (inte minst för sig själv) att man är rädd för disktrasan.

Sunday, 10 June 2007, 20:48 GMT

Post-Communist Gay Bashing

Cathy Young of Reason Magazine writes about the intense homophobia in some post-communist countries. From the article:

A 19-year-old Russian college student I met on an Internet forum wrote to me that she was nonplussed by Western condemnation of police actions: "The gay parades are forbidden in Russia and to make them without a permission sounds strange and stupid. No wonder that [the police] have to arrest the members." This logic may tell us more about attitudes toward civil liberties than attitudes toward gays in Putin's Russia; but the young woman's specific comments about gays were telling as well. "You see, the gay prides in Russia don't work not because of government but because of people," she wrote. "The majority of citizens truly despise gays. … I have no idea what will happen if parades become a usual thing in Russia. In that situation gays will be all dead because normal people will just kill them." Ironically, she then added that she couldn't understand what the gays wanted anyway: after all, Russia now has "lots of gay clubs where they can be safe and enjoy their culture."

I believe there is another explanation as well. During the totalitarian communist regime, no religion was allowed. People who were deeply religious were forced underground, while more moderate believers had to conform to Marxist rhetoric. When communism was defeated and people were free to practice traditional religion again, many opted for a very strict fundamentalist theology. In a rapidly changing society, people tend to value ideas and rituals associated with tradition and heritage. To me it is obvious that this is what happens in Russia and Poland. It is no coincident that gay people are singled out as the most blameworthy in these countries. Gay people have been labelled with sin since the Christian churches ruled homosexuality morally wrong in the fourteenth century.

This is an explanation. It is no excuse. Violent, neo-fascist homophobia in Russia and Poland is not excusable. Nor is the homophobia advocated by Islamists and others.

Sunday, 10 June 2007, 02:57 GMT

Moderater kräver reformerad äktenskapsbalk

Idag skriver åtta moderata riksdagsmän på Dagens Nyheters debattsida. Artikeln är ett svar på den debattartikel som skrevs av ett antal borgerliga riksdagsledamöter för en dryg vecka sedan. Jag citerar dagens debattartikel:

Det självklara enligt moderata värderingar är att säga ja till en könsneutral äktenskapsbalk som innefattar alla familjer. Människor i vårt samhälle ska inte diskrimineras på grund av kön, hudfärg, religion, etniskt ursprung eller sexuell läggning. Allas lika värde och individens frihet till sina livsval är grundstenar i moderat politik. Med det som utgångspunkt är det också självklart för moderater att säga ja till samkönade äktenskap, oavsett hur man lever eller vill leva hemma hos sig.

Jag skriver under på varje ord.

Saturday, 9 June 2007, 18:10 GMT

In-Bed Blogging

Would you get up in the morning if you could do most of your work in bed? If your answer is no, then Max has come up with a solution that could help you fulfil your dream.

Saturday, 9 June 2007, 18:08 GMT

Ett citat i tiden

"Jag hade minnesluckor. Jag var totalt färdig. Fullständigt. Men jag kommer ihåg det, fast jag har glömt bort alltihop."

– Göran Persson om sin första fylla

Källa: Tänkt och sagt av Göran Persson

Saturday, 9 June 2007, 04:05 GMT

The Swedish Academy Puts Pressure on China

Today, on the second day of Chinese president Hu Jintao's state visit to Sweden, thirteen members of the Swedish Academy have signed an article published in newspaper Dagens Nyheter demanding the release of several named intellectuals currently imprisoned. To my knowledge, this is the first time ever the prestigious Academy has made an appeal like this. In the late 1980s, when Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on Salman Rushdie, calling for the novelist's assassination, the Academy was criticized for not speaking out in favour of free speech. The turmoil that followed led to two members leaving the Academy, which resulted in their chairs being empty since the rules stipulates that members are elected for life.

I welcome a development where intellectuals take a stand for human rights fundamental to intellectual achievements. Far too often, intellectuals in Europe and America have done the opposite by excusing totalitarian regimes.

Thursday, 7 June 2007, 22:53 GMT

Profile of an iPhone Buyer

Digital Life America, a division of market research firm Solutions Research Group, decided to find out the demographic of the type of American "definitely interested" in buying Apple's iPhone. Here's what they found:

72 percent of respondents who said they were going to buy were male. Not surprising. The average household income of a line-waiter is $75,600; also not surprising. Although the number is 26 percent higher than the national average, it's about the same as the commonly-reported average household income for Apple users.

The average age of a definite iPhone buyer is 31 years, although the graph appears to be almost evenly split between the 15-24 age group, 25-34 age group, and the 35-49 age group. Only six percent of respondents who said they would definitely be buying an iPhone were over the age of 50.

As for where they live, 43 percent of the respondents reported living in New York or California, which Digital Life America says is about double the national average. 58 percent have completed college, compared to 43 percent of the national average, and 48 percent of them do not currently own iPods.

My husband-to-be is counting the days until he can get his hands on one of those things.

Wednesday, 6 June 2007, 19:39 GMT

Falsterbo Lighthouse

My partner and I went for a drive this afternoon. We ended up at Falsterbo, a tiny seaside resort about 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of our home in Malmö. We parked our car and took a stroll along Falsterbo's popular golf course. I snapped this picture when we passed the local lighthouse. It was built in 1795, which makes it the oldest lighthouse in Scandinavia.

Wednesday, 6 June 2007, 11:23 GMT

Ett citat i tiden

"Börjar mer och mer se konservatismen som en pubertal ideologi, där man är oartig nog att ständigt kommentera allt man inte gillar. En ideologi där man definierar sig själv utifrån allt man inte är, där grupptillhörighet maniskt måste definieras genom att peka ut andra som man anser vara sämre än en själv."

– Christian Fredriksson

Tuesday, 5 June 2007, 20:12 GMT

What Tony Learned

Tony Blair writes an exclusive essay for The Economist on his years as prime minister. He makes some good reflections, one being the West's sluggish attitude towards terrorism:

I fear the world, and especially a large part of Western opinion, has become dangerously misguided about this threat [global terrorism]. If there was any mistake made in the aftermath of September 11th, it was not to realise that the roots of this terrorism were deep and pervasive. Removing the Taliban from government seemed relatively easy. Removing their ideology is so much harder. It has been growing for over a generation. It is based on genuine belief, the believers being people determined to outlast us, to be indefatigable when we are weary: to be strong-willed and single-minded when we have so many other things to preoccupy us (and when the comforts of our Western lives seem so untouchable by the activities of what are naturally seen as a few fanatics).

Read the entire Blair essay here.

Tuesday, 5 June 2007, 18:58 GMT

Marriage Equality in America

The groundbreaking Supreme Court ruling came only forty years ago:

Richard and Mildred Loving were married in 1958 in Washington D.C. because their home state of Virginia still upheld the antimiscegenation law which stated that interracial marriages were illegal. They were married, then lived together in Caroline County, Virginia. In 1959 they were prosecuted and convicted of violating the states's antimiscegenation law. They were each sentenced one year in jail, but promised the sentence would be suspended if they agreed to leave the state and not return for 25 years. Forced to move, they returned to Washington D.C. where, in 1963, they initiated a suit challenging the constitutionality of the antimiscegenation law. In March of 1966, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the law, but in June of 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law unconstitutional. Thus, in 1967 the 16 states which still had antimiscegenation laws on their books were forced to erase them.

The struggle continues to this day. The enemies of love say it's unnatural.

Tuesday, 5 June 2007, 15:04 GMT

Rosengren vs the Monopolists

For many decades, Swedes who enjoy drinking alcohol have had to live puritan lives forced upon us by moralistic do-gooders with more power than any officials should have in a democratic country. Many people voted in favour of Sweden joining the European Union because they wished to curb these illiberal tendencies in Swedish society. Today, many of these voters will be happy to learn that the European Court of Justice has ruled that import of alcoholic beverages made over the Internet should be legalized. From an article in The Local:

Tuesday's judgment came as a surprise to many after the court's advocate general recommended in November last year that the European Court uphold Swedish law in the Rosengren Case.

The case was brought by Klas Rosengren and other Swedish nationals who ordered cases of Spanish wine through a Danish website.

The wine was confiscated by the customs authorities and criminal proceedings were brought.

The Swedish Supreme Court asked the European court whether the Swedish legislation was compatible with Community law.

The EU court took the view that "the fact that Systembolaget may refuse an order from a consumer to import alcoholic beverages amounts to a quantitative restriction on imports."

All major Swedish newspapers write about the court ruling. Here are links to some of them:

• Dagens Nyheter
• Svenska Dagbladet
• Sydsvenska Dagbladet
• Dina Pengar
• Aftonbladet

Monday, 4 June 2007, 02:03 GMT

Greet Doctor Cure

On 24 May, President Bush announced his intention to nominate James W. Holsinger to serve as Surgeon General of the United States. Bush said that Holsinger "will be charged with providing the best scientific information available on how Americans can make smart choices that improve their health and reduce their risk of illness and injury." As it turns out, this might include the "curing" of gays and lesbians. Dr Holsinger's scientific information is based on Baptist theology rather than, well, scientific information. "We see that as an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle," David Calhoun, Holsinger's Methodist pastor and friend explains in an interview. "We have people who seek to walk out of that lifestyle."

From the same article I learn that Holsinger, in his capacity as a high-ranking official in the United Methodist Church, also opposed allowing a lesbian to be an associate pastor, and backed another pastor who refused to let a gay man join his church. This in an attempt to help the poor lifestylers, I assume. As we all know, nothing helps people in need better than some old-fashioned bullying. Right?

There is still hope, though. Bush's nomination needs Senate confirmation. Let's hope Dr Holsinger never takes the office of Surgeon General.

Sunday, 3 June 2007, 15:39 GMT

Nazism with a New Name

Phoebe A. Greenwood of the Guardian writes about the grim reality of violent homophobia in Russia and Easter Europe. I quote the article:

It is Gay Pride season in Europe, with marches in Poland and Russia. In Latvia, the capital, Riga, is hosting four days of lectures, classical concerts, parties and film screenings, but the big draw will be the final parade through the Vermane Garden on June 3. Organisers are hoping for a turnout of around 400, maybe more if the weather is as sunny as last year. It's hard to know. What they can expect with some certainty is that neofascist and ultra-religious counterdemonstrators will outnumber their marchers by at least two to one. The police presence will be greater still. As one activist put it, "It'll be less of a Pride parade than a human rights fight."

(Seen in picture are some of last week's anti-gay protesters in Moscow. Photo by Alexey Sazonov.)

Friday, 1 June 2007, 00:57 GMT

The Return of Chic Totalitarianism

May was a sad month to friends of liberty and free speech. My friend in Venezuela has sent me more emails than ever before about the hardship forced upon critics of the Chávez regime. I have read stories about people being beaten and imprisoned by the police only for voicing their opinions; I have seen enough pictures of assaulted human-rights activists to give me nightmares. I cannot exaggerate the magnitude of what is happening in Venezuela. What we see now I nothing less then the birth of a new totalitarian state. From an article in this week's The Economist:

They prayed out loud, they wept and hugged each other. They sang the national anthem and chanted "Freedom!" But there was no stay of execution. Just before midnight on May 27th, Venezuela's Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) went off the air after 53 years. A few minutes later, its Channel 2 slot carried the logo of TVes, a new government-run channel with a worthily anodyne schedule of cooking and cultural programmes, interspersed with cartoons and propaganda for the man who shut down RCTV, Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chávez.

He announced in December that there would be no more broadcasting for the "fascists" and "coup-plotters" of RCTV. His supporters argue that the channel's licence expired and was simply not renewed. RCTV's owners and staff, along with many independent human-rights organisations, see its closure as revenge for its editorial line. Troops seized its transmitters in fulfilment of a supreme-court order whose legal basis was unclear.

The country's most traditional and popular television station, RCTV attracted around a third of viewers. Gone are Venezuelans' favourite soap operas, the world's longest-running comedy show, and a breakfast talk-show that has earned its outspoken host, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a stream of insults and threats from government supporters.

According to opinion polls, an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans oppose what they see as interference with their choice of viewing. In protest, many took to the streets and to such airwaves as are still open to dissenting voices. Students faced tear gas and plastic bullets from riot police for three consecutive days. They were joined by journalists and, in an unusual show of solidarity, by soap-opera stars and news anchors from Venevisión, a rival private channel. Its owner, Gustavo Cisneros, caved in to government pressure in 2004 and removed critical commentary and news items from its broadcasts.

What scares me more than anything else right now is the outspoken support of Chávez regime. While people are fighting to preserve the small pieces of democracy that still exists in Venezuela, the Europe's Socialist Left salute the rebirth of totalitarian communism as if the twentieth-century tyranny of the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe never happened. Less than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people who said the learned the lesson jump on the bandwagon and praise the same ideas destroying democracy in one of South America's wealthiest countries.

When I walked through Malmö's city centre earlier today, I first saw a young man with what looked like a Nazi pin on his shirt collar, and then, few minutes later, a teenage girl wearing a Hugo Chávez T-shirt. I sadly realized that history repeats itself quickly these days. Totalitarianism is chic again, just as it was when I was a teenager. I cannot stop wondering what it is that makes some people despise freedom that much.

Postscript: Just now, I read an article (in Swedish) by former communist MP Jörn Svensson. Like most socialists in Europe he defends Chávez. He claims that RCTV got its licence revoked because it did not report a coup d'état on 11 April 2002. Once again, Chávez's press releases are translated and recycled by the Socialist Left who take the dictatorship's word for the truth. The Chávez regime wants us to believe that a failure to mention some breaking news five years ago is what led to the closure of Venezuela's only independent television station.

Friday, 1 June 2007, 00:50 GMT

Äktenskapet har inget med biologi att göra

Så kom då den debattartikel mot könsneutral äktenskapslagstiftning som det så länge ryktats om. Inget i artikeln är nytt, alla argumenten har använts förr. Mest förvånad är jag faktiskt över att inte fler konservativa moderater står som undertecknare. För oss som är aktiva i partiet är det väl känt att en ganska stor minoritet inom den konservativa grupperingen är mycket tveksam till allt som uppfattas som kulturradikalism. Det finns givetvis en del homofobi och teologi också, men numera söker sig personer med dessa motiv främst till Kristdemokraterna.

Kristdemokraterna har länge velat föra fram den franska äktenskapsutredningen. Det gör också författarna till denna artikel. De kanadensiska, nederländska, spanska och belgiska utredningarna låtsas man inte om. Bara den franska; den enda som kom fram till att heterosexuella även fortsättningsvis bör ges särskilda privilegier. Jag citerar dagens debattartikel i Dagens Nyheter:

Även om inte alla äktenskap leder till att barn föds, avvisar den franska utredningen argumentet att homosexuella par, genom till exempel assisterad befruktning, kan bidra till reproduktionen. Man konstaterar det uppenbara faktum att i en samkönad relation måste ytterligare en person, en tredje part, en person av annat kön, alltid vara inblandad.

I den meningen skulle ett sådant äktenskap inte längre baseras på att handla om två personer – det blir inte längre monogamt. Varken den samkönade parrelationen eller trepartsrelationen avspeglar ju barnets, människans, biologiska ursprung.

Jag tror nog att en hel del konservativa applåderar detta tillsynes logiska resonemang. Problemet är bara att äktenskapet nog inte handlar om biologi utan om kultur. Vuxna behöver inte äktenskap för att skaffa barn, och barn behöver inte äktenskap för att känna sig trygga – äktenskapet är och bör vara ett kontrakt och kulturell markör som signalerar "vi är en familj". Men debattörerna envisas:

Det faktum att äktenskapet syftar till att säkerställa att livet förs vidare till nya generationer rättfärdigar också att det är förbehållet par som kan bidra till denna reproduktion. Någon diskriminering handlar det inte om eftersom samkönade pars situation är annorlunda, vilket motiverar en annan juridisk behandling.

Naturligtvis är det diskriminering eftersom kriterierna som sätt upp inte tillämpas på andra. Om nu kravet för att få ingå äktenskap på riktigt är att paret utan extern inblandning kan föröka sig så måste det rimligen utesluta alla som inte förmår göra detta. I dagsläget skulle det innebära att ungefär vart tionde heterosexuellt par skulle fråntas möjligheten att ingå äktenskap. Naturligtvis kan man välja att undanta de heterosexuella par som få assisterad befruktning med egna könsceller, men det skulle ändå utesluta många heterosexuella par. Lägger man därtill alla de heterosexuella par som ingår äktenskap vid en ålder då de inte längre kan få barn ökar siffran radikalt.

Personligen tycker jag argumentet är osakligt och vilseledande. Sanningen är ju att homosexuella skaffar barn. Bögar och lesbiska har inte sämre könsceller än andra och kan således skaffa barn både med och utan assistans. Argumentet att äktenskap ska reserveras för att skydda heterosexuellas barn blir därför cyniskt. Om nu barnets bästa är det viktigare argumentet för äktenskap, varför då inte se till alla barns bästa? Om ett barn har en bög till far så borde en könsneutral äktenskapslagstiftning ligga i detta barns intressen.

Det riktigt obehagliga argumentet kommer sist i debattartikeln:

En könsneutral äktenskapslag i Sverige skulle också kunna öka främlingskapet inför vårt samhälle bland många nyanlända medborgare. Kulturella och religiösa motsättningar av långvarig art kan komma att polariseras i vårt land om inte äktenskapsfrågan hanteras med varsamhet och försiktighet.

Detta är relativism. Konservativa debattörer som normalt inte är relativister är nu plötsligt villiga att kompromissa om grundläggande friheter – och här principen att lagar stiftas i riksdagen och inte av "gatans parlament". Homosexuella familjer ska även fortsättningsvis särbehandlas för att inte reta upp människor med annan kultur eller religion. Denna form av relativism är oerhört farlig. Istället för att försvara det som är rätt så intar man hållningen att allt är lika bra. I sammanhanget är detta argument helt absurt eftersom hela artikeln egentligen utgår ifrån att det finns absoluta värden som ska försvaras. Jag tror att debattörerna helt enkelt trott sig finna ett argument som kan övertyga vänstern och de ofta principlösa socialliberalerna. Men isolerat skulle detta argument mot reformerad äktenskapslagstiftning lika gärna kunnat användas för att försvara könsstympning eller tvångsgifte.